


there will be no years of silence

by loyaulte_me_lie



Series: you were written in the stars [3]
Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Basically Will and Lyra Go On A Night Out, Crack Treated Seriously, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff, Happy Ending, Post-Canon, Reunions, University
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 22:54:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29583354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loyaulte_me_lie/pseuds/loyaulte_me_lie
Summary: Will goes to university. A year later, the person he least expects shows up in his college.
Relationships: Lyra Belacqua/Will Parry
Series: you were written in the stars [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2108145
Comments: 8
Kudos: 25





	there will be no years of silence

**Author's Note:**

> I was on a walk and “Cut To The Feeling” by Carly Rae Jepsen came on, put me in a fantastic dance-y mood, and prompted my brain into coming up with this thing so…thanks, Carly! Title is from the beautiful “The Heart Is A Muscle” by Gang of Youths. Listen to a cheesy playlist whilst reading this fic for full effect :D Happy Saturday guys!

**November 2025**

**.Oxford.**

“This is the third this month,” Mary hums, taking the pen from John’s hand and leaning over to write an equation she’s probably just invented on the corner of his notebook. “Try this?”

“Ok,” John says, typing it into the computer.

“Any joy?”

“Hmm. It might be easier to see in infra-red.”

“I think they just got it in visible,” Mary frowns. “I’ll ask Alice whether her wife knows any more.”

“Sounds like a plan,” John says, presses his fingers briefly into his eyes. The anomaly, like all the others that have cropped over the last six months, lightning fast, here-and-gone, is doing his head in. One of their colleague’s wives – a meteorologist – had spotted it over eastern Canada two weeks ago; when John and Mary had heard the news, they’d both immediately known, bone-deep that it was something to do with the other worlds. _What_ that something is, on the other hand, is a lot harder to pin down. “Did you-”

He doesn’t get to finish his question. The door to their office bangs open, bounces off the other wall. Before he can react, Sayan is swooping past them down to the pine marten that has rushed in, quickly followed by two people John thought he would never see again. He blinks, hard.

“What the-” he starts, but Lyra interrupts before he can get the words out.

“Where’s Will?”

“Lyra,” Mary says, faintly. “Hi. What the hell are you doing here?”

John stands, meets Lee’s eyes. Lee is grinning – both of them look exhausted and wind-burned, both of them are still in their flight gear. Lee’s hair and Hester’s fur have streaks of silver-grey that weren’t there when John last saw them.

“Long time, no see,” Lee drawls, and John starts laughing. What else can he do? “Missed us, Parry?”

“Terribly,” John says, moving forward to give Lee a hug, Mary hot on his heels. Lyra wriggles away from Mary, irritated.

“Yes-yes-nice-to-see-you-where’s-Will?”

“Lyra,” Pan scolds, half-hearted, “ _manners._ ”

Lyra barely deigns this with a response. She’s practically vibrating on the spot with excitement, and John hasn’t the heart to make her wait a second longer.

“He’s living at Trinity College at the moment,” he says. “Though he might be in class. I don’t know his timetable, I’m afraid.”

“I’ll find him,” Lyra says, confident. She pats Lee on the arm. “I’ll leave you the adult. He’ll explain everything. Bye!”

“Uh, _rude,_ ” Lee complains, but Lyra is gone, the door slamming shut in her wake.

“Well she hasn’t changed at all,” Mary says into the silence, and Lee grins.

“Nope. Still the same old Lyra.”

“Will is going to be for a shock,” John says, then shakes his head. “Not that I’m not glad to see you, but why exactly are you here?”

“ _How_ are you here?” Mary adds, already going to flick their kettle on and find the biscuit tin. John pushes out a chair for Lee, takes his coat.

Lee sits, Hester hopping up beside him. Sayan flies back to her perch above the desk. “Where do I _start_?”

“With the truth, Lee,” John says, trying to force down his grin, knowing exactly what Lee’s relationship to the truth is like – fickle at best, old enemies at worst.

“Aw, you ruin my fun, Parry,” Lee pulls a face, takes a seat. “Only for you two. I hope you know I don’t make a habit of this.”

“We know,” John says, dry.

“We’re honoured,” Mary adds. Lee laughs and begins the story.

*

“Ok so Thabisa and Helen are coming over for pizza and pres at seven,” Gohar says. “I’ll pick up some supplies from Tesco. Do you need anything?”

“No, I’m good,” Will replies, hefting his bag higher. The silvery winter sunlight dribbles between the clouds, illuminates the golden buildings of Broad Street. He fights a yawn, tries to focus on his friend.

“You _are_ coming out with us tonight, right?”

“Probably.”

Gohar raises their eyebrows in judgemental silence. Will looks away.

“I have several essays to do.”

“So do I,” Gohar says. “C’mon, dude, it’s the last one of term.”

“Maybe.”

“Thab’s right, you really are a cryptid,” Gohar shakes their head. “Unbelievable. Get some energy up whilst I’m at the library.”

Will rolls his eyes, fond. “I’ll try. Have fun.”

“You too,” Gohar says. They kiss Will’s cheek and disappear off in the direction of the Bodleian, orange coat flapping dramatically in the wind.

Will watches them for a second and then turns back towards college, footsteps heavy. He just wants to curl up on his bed and not move for a significant number of hours, not go out and have to pretend a good mood. This time of year sucks. Honestly, it’s a miracle he made it to class this afternoon; not that, in hindsight, he needed to. They’ve just started studying Mum’s poetry, and much as he appreciates how talented she is, it’s fucking weird. He’d spent most of it complaining nonverbally to Kirjava – _what do you think they’d say if they knew that metaphor about stabbing an angel was not a metaphor in the slightest_ – or, more verbally, to Gohar – _seriously, I do not need to read the raunchy poems Mum wrote about Dad, urgh, why did I choose this module?_ Gohar, traitor that they are, found his pain disproportionately funny.

He’s so completely off in his head that the shout is jarring. He jumps, his heart pounding. Even after all this time, his hand goes for the knife that is no longer there – but it’s just the porter.

“EXCUSE ME,” he’s shouting through his megaphone. “YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED ON THE GRASS.”

Will pauses, glances over to the unfortunate subject of the porter’s ire. It’s a small figure, wrapped in a leather coat and hat with long brown braids. The figure turns and Will _freezes._ She spots him at the exact same time. His breathing stops, the world slows around him – because Lyra is standing in the centre of his college’s lawn and he can’t tell whether this is actually real or whether his brain has finally given up and decided to start hallucinating.

“Will?” she calls.

“Lyra?” he croaks back, but she hears him.

“GET OFF THE GRASS,” the porter contributes.

There is another half-second of pure frozen disbelief and then Lyra is barrelling towards him like a steam-train, flinging herself into his arms. He stumbles backwards, just hangs onto his balance. It’s not a hallucination. She’s heavy and solid in his arms, her face pressed into his shoulder, her arms tight around his middle. There is a lump in his throat and he holds her close, crushing the lonely, painful years between them until they’ve been ground to all but dust. She smells of rain and smoke and chemicals; they’ve both grown but she still fits into his arms like she was made for them.

After a long while, she pulls away just an inch, lifts cold fingers to brush his cheek. Her face is still windburned and sunburned, her hair is falling out of its braids. She’s a little taller, wearing old, well-loved leathers, aviator goggles pushed up on top of her head.

“Hello,” he manages after a second. “What are you _doing_ here?”

She grins and _god,_ her smile hasn’t changed at all. He could watch her smile until the end of days. “I came to find you, idiot.”

“Evidently,” Will says. “But not here, I mean, like _here._ In our world. I’m so thrilled to see you, but I’m just…”

“It’s a long story,” she interrupts with unusual reserve. Then, sounding more like herself, “And I’m hungry.”

“I’ve got cake in my room,” Will says. “You can tell me there. Come on.”

They walk to his room, past the glaring porter. She hasn’t let go of his hand. Her fingers are warm and rough around his; she’s got new calluses, the ridge of a scar on her palm. He wonders, absently and hysterically, how else five years have conspired to change her, still not entirely sure whether he’s dreaming or not. They reach his staircase, thankfully still deserted, and go up to his room. When he unlocks the door, he sees that Pan has somehow wormed his way through the window and is sitting on the bed with Kirjava.

“Oh _Lyra,_ ” Kirjava says, and jumps off the bed to wind around Lyra’s legs, purring like mad. “Lyra, I’ve missed you.”

Lyra lets go of his hand to bend down, and Kirjava butts her head against Lyra’s hand. Will feels the contact deep down, buried in his ribcage, can’t help the giddy smile that is absolutely intent on taking over his face. He goes to put the kettle on and Pan pads quietly over, hops up onto the desk and licks the back of Will’s hand in greeting, making a little happy noise deep in the back of his throat.

“It’s so good to see you as well,” Will says. “I trust you’ve been keeping her out of trouble.”

“Failing to,” Pan says, amused. “Maybe you’ll be better at it than me.”

“That’s a lost cause,” Kirjava calls. She’s ushered Lyra into a chair and hopped up into her lap, resting her chin on her paws. “He’s a horrible enabler.”

“On second thoughts,” Pan hums. “You are. I can't believe I'd forgotten that.”

“If you can’t beat them, join them,” Will says, pouring hot water and carrying the cake tin and the tea mugs over to Lyra. “Here you go.”

“Thanks,” she says. Kirjava leaps down to the floor, stretches elegantly.

“Pan and I are going to explore and catch up without you two getting in the way,” she says. “We’ll see you later.”

“Be careful,” Will says. “A pine marten is much harder to write off than a cat.”

“Yes, I know,” Kirjava nudges his hand, and then she and Pan are gone, scrabbling out of the window. When he looks back, Lyra is looking at him, resting her cheek on her hand, her cake plate balanced on her knee. He looks back, tracing the differences. There’s a silvery scar bisecting her eyebrow too, a certain way she holds herself - steadier, more assured. 

“I’m sorry, I’m just…” Will says eventually. “Still in shock.”

“Me too.” Lyra shakes her head. “I’ve imagined this moment for so long that I don’t know what to do with it now.”

“Me neither.”

They watch each other for another second longer and then Will decides to take the plunge: “Ok, so…”

“What happened?” Lyra sighs, tugs her hand through her hair in a way that’s entirely Lee. “Well…after everything, Lee adopted me officially. But we had a deal. I did school half the year, and then came adventuring with him the other half. School was…I didn’t like it. It was so weird to be sitting in a classroom trying to learn Latin and philosophy after everything that happened.”

“I know what you mean,” Will says, and Lyra must cotton onto something in his voice because she abruptly leans forward, eyes fixed on his.

“Have you been alright?”

He can’t bring himself to lie to her. “Sometimes.”

She shuffles her chair closer, nudges her knees against his. “I was mostly ok when I was off with Lee, but I wished you could be with me,” she says. “I wish you could have seen it all.” She sighs, “I was happiest when I was in the botanical gardens with you, every year. Just sitting in the same place, even if you weren’t actually with me.” Then, uncertain, “You were there, weren’t you?”

“Yes. Every year,” he says, fervent.

“Good.” Lyra’s shoulders ease a little.

“You still haven’t explained how you’re here.”

“Oh, that. Yeah. Well it was an accident. We were running away from the Magisterium-”

“You _what_?”

“Just because the Authority and Metatron died it doesn’t mean that the Magisterium stopped being. Lee and I got on their bad side. I mean, they didn’t like me anyway, but they mostly left me alone till now. Guess it was cause I was still a kid. But anyway. We were running – flying – away from them because they wanted to kill us. But there was a storm, and then we must have somehow got through between the worlds. I don’t know how. Maybe your dad and Mary will. We didn’t realise at first because it all looked the exact same. Then these screaming metal airships appeared and the pilots told us we had to land, so we did and we talked to them and that’s when we realised cause they didn’t have dæmons. We flew to Oxford after that, all the way across the sea.”

“You flew all the way here from-”

“America.”

“You flew all the way here from America in a balloon,” Will shakes his head.

“You flew from Svalbard to the Himalayas in a balloon to rescue me,” she points out. “It’s shorter than that.”

“True. And Lee’s here?”

“Yeah. I left him with your dad and Mary. They told me where you were so I came to find you. And now I’m here.”

“I’m still getting over that.”

“I can tell,” she says with a lightning-quick smile. She puts her tea mug on the floor and then just leans forward even further, and they watch each other for another few minutes. Will finds that he can breathe easier, like he didn’t realise he’d not been able to for all these years. “What have you been doing?”

He tells her about school, the English degree, all the trips with his family – a desperate quest to feel alive again after everything they’d been through. Mum becoming the first black Poet Laureate. Mary getting her professorship. Dad still ticking on, like he always does. All the things he’s thought of doing and all the things he’s ruled out. All the awful feelings that have taken up residence in his head, the thoughts about how it might have all ended when he’d slid that last window shut. What it’s like to _know_ everything that’s out there and have to carry on with that knowledge pulsing and burning below his sternum. He sees it all reflected in Lyra’s face as they migrate to the floor cross-legged under a blanket, knee to knee, with more cake and tea, knows finally, _finally,_ he’s not facing this all on his own.

Lyra is in the middle of a story about some horrible gang and a daring rescue of a political prisoner when there is a loud knock on the door. Will starts, irritated.

“What?”

“I hope you’re not naked because I’m coming in!” Thabisa calls. “Oh _hello._ ”

Belatedly, Will realises that it’s dark outside and the clock on his desk is reading six-fifty-five. Thabisa is all glammed up – lace top and bright red lipstick against dark brown skin and gold-embroidered overalls, her hair in its usual knots – and she strikes a pose against Will’s doorframe out of habit more than anything else. He can see her girlfriend Helena behind her carrying pizza boxes, hears Gohar’s squeal of excitement. Lyra is giving him a narrow-eyed what-the-hell look.

 _Sorry,_ he mouths at her, and then says aloud, “What do you want?”

“Plush? Pizza? Didn’t Gohar tell you?”

“No, they told me,” Will says. “I’m sorry, Thab, it’s just…”

“Nope. No way. Parry, you promised,” Thabisa says. She abandons the door, marches over to Lyra with a hand stuck out. “Hi. I’m Thabisa, this idiot’s best friend since nappies.”

“Lyra,” Lyra responds, taking it, and Will hears the possessive note in her voice, the way she slides even closer to him. It is not lost on Thabisa, more’s the pity.

“Oh, right, you’re Dr Malone’s goddaughter, aren’t you?”

Lyra blinks but recovers smoothly. “Yes, that’s me.”

“Excellent. You’re over eighteen, yes? Great. Want to come out with us?”

“Come out?” Lyra asks, eyes flicking to Will.

“Drinking and dancing,” Will sighs.

“It’s fun. Don’t be fooled by his tone.”

“We don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” Will says, and realises his mistake a second later when Lyra lifts her chin in that beautiful, stubborn way of hers.

“No, I want to go,” she says. Then, as an afterthought, “If you do.”

“I’ll go anywhere with you,” he says before he can think, and Lyra beams. He just knows she’s thinking of that conversation in the balloon when he’d agreed to go to the land of the dead with her, meets her smile with one of his own.

“Sorted,” Thabisa announces, looking very smug. Then, “are you really going to Plush dressed like that? You’ll boil, girl.”

“I don’t have anything else with me,” Lyra says. “It was an unexpected visit.”

“No worries. You’re probably the same size as Gohar. Come on.”

Will watches helpless as Thabisa tugs Lyra to her feet, propels her none-too-gently out of the door shouting, “Gohar, I have a challenge for you!” He hears Gohar call back, “Oh I _love_ the _leather_ ,” and then Thabisa is reappearing, digging around in Will’s wardrobe and chucking him a clean t-shirt and pair of jeans she insists are ‘artfully’ ripped. “Dress.”

He rolls his eyes, picks up the clothes and goes into his little bathroom. He hears Thabisa settle on his bed. “So she’s cuter than I expected.”

“Thabisa,” Will warns, muffled by the t-shirt.

“Hey, I’m just making an observation. I’m not implying anything.”

“Yes you are. I know that smile.”

“You’re not even looking at me.”

“I don’t need to be looking at you,” Will says, rescuing his belt from the towel rail and re-emerging from the bathroom. “Look, Lyra’s really special, ok?”

“Noted,” Thabisa says, suddenly serious. “I’ll be nice.”

“Thanks. Is this ok?”

“Hmm. Yep. Red jacket, there you go. Very fashionable. Come on, let’s go.”

*

Lyra’s expression upon entering a club for the first time is not something Will is ever going to forget. She baulks, clutches his fingers hard and then shouts above the music, “Why is the ceiling glittering? Why do you have coloured anbaric…oh my _god._ ”

“Welcome to Plush,” Will says, tugging her in the direction of the booth his friends have taken over. “Are you ok?”

“It’s glittering like _me_ ,” Lyra giggles like a small child and then spins so the sparkly jacket Gohar lent her sets her immediate vicinity glittering too.

“How drunk are you?” Will asks as they take a seat.

“Hmm,” Lyra says. “I don’t know. I really don’t know.” Then, conspiratorially, leaning in, “this is weird, Will.”

“Yeah, I know,” he says, laughs. She snuggles closer under one of his arms. Helena pushes a pair of VKs towards them, raises her perfect eyebrows in a challenge. Lyra takes one and examines it suspiciously for a second before taking a sip and screwing up her face.

“Eww,” she says. Then, considering, “actually, it’s not bad.”

“Have you never had a VK before?” Gohar demands, laughing.

“I’ve never been to a club before,” Lyra protests. “And Lee doesn’t take me to bars that serve these… _things._ ”

“You’ve been missing out,” Thabisa says. “I’m gonna go dance. Coming?”

“We’ll just stay here for a bit,” Will says. No matter how coherent Lyra is sounding right now, her fingers are jittering against the table and the way she’s plastered against him says as much as he needs to know about how she’s doing. She’s dealt with battlefields and abysses and the fury of the Clouded Mountain, but Plush on a Friday night is a whole different kind of stressful. “Have fun.”

“Boring,” Thabisa says, blows a kiss; she and the others are quickly swallowed up by the crowd. Will turns back to Lyra who’s watching everyone dance, grind, flirt, and drink with the wide eyes of someone teetering on the edge of fight-or-flight.

“You alright?” he says into her ear.

“Yeah,” she says, fingers closing around the neck of the purple VK. “This is just…a lot.”

“I know. We can sit here as long as you need.”

“Ok,” she says, dipping her head to rest against his shoulder. She’d spent most of pres sitting as close to him as she possibly could, answering his friends’ questions with flair and not a little bit of dishonesty. Will can only imagine the grilling he’s going to get when she’s gone, but really, he doesn’t care. Having Lyra in her element charming new people next to him, having his friends screeching with laughter as they introduced her to drinking games, the world lighter and brighter than it’s been in five years – nothing can bring him down.

They sit and watch for a while and then begin to talk again, necessarily close to each other over the pounding music. He can feel the brush of her breath against his cheek, the warmth of her hand on his knee. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen after tonight, knows she’ll probably have to go back, refuses to think about any of it. It doesn’t matter. She’s here now. She’s inches away and beautiful, the glitter Gohar had daubed along her cheeks catching and cutting the bright lights into tiny shards that reflect into his eyes.

A sparkling introduction starts to play over the speakers and abruptly, Gohar is right there, bursting into the moment like a neon floral missile. “Parry, come on, it’s _Carly Rae Jepsen,_ if you’re not going to groove to this I’m officially unfriending you,” they shout, listing to the side. “Lyra! Please tell him to come dance!”

“I don’t know how!” Lyra calls back.

“We’ll show you, come on!”

Lyra gives him a sideways look. “Do you want to?”

“If you do,” he says.

“I'm curious,” she says, and that’s all the encouragement he needs to get up, pulling her in his wake. They follow Gohar into the seething, jumping, headbanging mass of humanity on the dancefloor, ending up in a little circle with Gohar and their friends from dance squad. Lyra’s fingers are in a death grip on his as they are buffeted back and forth.

“Just move like…like _this,_ ” Gohar slurs, demonstrating some complicated thing with their hips. “Go on!”

Lyra tries to mimic them but collapses against Will in laughter after a few seconds. “I don’t know how you do that!”

“It’s easy!”

“It’s not!”

“Just move,” Will calls to her, grabbing her free hand and spinning her around – she shrieks with surprise and grabs onto his shoulder for balance, her face flushed, grinning, looking younger and happier than he’s ever seen her before. “Doesn’t matter what you do, no-one cares.”

Lyra appears to take this as a personal challenge, though her dancing is more flailing than anything resembling coordination. Her smile is too big for the room, sucks all the atmosphere out of it, and Will honestly can’t remember anything other than dancing to Carly Rae Jepsen in a dark sparkling room and thinking that he’s so in love he could honestly die from it. That’s all he remembers.

It’s a good night out.

*

The streets of Oxford are quieter than they were before, and it’s cold. Lyra clutches Will’s hand, the world slurring a little around her and the music still echoing around her ears.

“So,” Will is saying as they cross a bridge. “What’s the verdict?”

“I can’t believe people invented that,” Lyra says, shakes her head. “I had no idea. It was fun, though.”

“It is, when you’re with the right people,” he replies. She smiles at that, knows exactly what he means. When she’d got over all the glitter and the bright lights and the ridiculous clothes people were wearing, it had been fun to dance with Will, to jump and yell and not give a damn about who was watching. It’s so different to the parties she’d attended with Mrs Coulter all those years ago, the dance halls girls at school had dragged her to with their politics and proper form. It felt _alive._ She wishes she could stay, wishes this could be her life, but she doesn’t know. She and Lee have just come crashing into this world with not a thought or a plan and…no, not now. She’ll ask later. She doesn’t want to have this conversation on the street. “How are you feeling?”

“Less drunk than I was,” she says. “I’m hungry, though.”

“VKs have that effect. They’re dangerous.”

“They’re so gross and I don’t know why I like them.”

“Join the club,” Will laughs. “And don’t worry, we’re going to get food.”

“All the shops are shut, though.”

“No, not yet.”

He leads her down a street she vaguely recognises and out onto St Giles, which is just the same in her world – a wide, tree-lined boulevard with colleges on either side. There’s a few tiny huts lit up with lights; little clusters of people are loitering around them. Will deals with the man inside one of the huts and produces a little weird box full of soggy-looking food. Lyra pokes it with the wooden fork. “What’s this?”

“Chips.” Will gives her a fond look. “You’ve eaten raw seal, Lyra. You’ll be fine.”

Lyra pulls a face but decides to take him at his word, takes a bite and literally feels her knees wobble. Will is smiling at her. “These are amazing.”

“I know. Come on,” he says, and then they’re walking again, not able to hold hands this time but Lyra clutches her chips like a lifeline. She gets a brief glimpse of a garden and the rush of water from wherever Pan is, and then Will is leading her back into his college, crossing the quad and going under a different arch to before.

“That is not the way to your room,” Lyra says.

“No, it’s better,” Will’s eyes glint in the dark, and he looks very pleased with himself. “I figured out a way to get onto the roof. No-one else knows about it.”

“You did _what_?” Lyra stares at him.

“Thought of you. First thing I found when I got here.”

“You are a _wonderful_ person,” Lyra says, gesturing exuberantly with her fork and Will grins, ducks his head.

The climb to the roof involves several metal staircases and then a slightly wobbling drainpipe situation, but then they’re up, and Will leads her down the gable to a chimney. They sit down with their backs against it and eat their food. The clouds have cleared and they are amongst a forest of spires and towers, just the way it was back home when Lyra was a little girl running wild. She’s not that little girl anymore, will never be her again, but she’s so glad she gets this – to be on the roof of a college with the city sleeping below her, like she and Will are the only people in the entire world.

She doesn’t want to burst the bubble but knows she has to. She takes a breath. “So I think Lee and I are stuck here. We don’t know how to get back. And anyway,” she sighs, presses her fingers into her forehead. Will has turned to look at her, silent, waiting for her to find her words, just the way he always did before when she had something to say, “I don’t want to go back. There’s nothing for me at home anymore but fear and running, and I like adventures but I don’t want to have to hide and I want to be somewhere I can be free. I’ve never had a home before, you know, and now that I’m older…I want a home to come back to. I just don’t know where to find it.”

Will catches her hand, pulls it away from her head, and gently brings it up to his face, kisses her fingers. She freezes.

“Lyra,” he says gently. “You know you’ve always got a home with me.”

She takes a big, shuddery breath. “So I can stay?”

“Forever, if you want,” he says, and then she’s leaning over and pressing her lips against his and he’s kissing her back, his hands in her hair, pulling her into his lap. She feels all shivery and sparkling and alive, lit up and incandescent, just the way it was when they first kissed all those years ago.

“You’ve never going to get rid of me,” she says when they break off for air, breathless, cupping his face.

Will smiles at her, steady and determined, an anbaric lamp holding back the dark. “I can’t think of anything better.”

*

They’re in the middle of preparing lunch when John hears the knock at the door. “I’ll get it,” he says, leaning briefly against Elaine’s shoulder.

She nudges him back, still half-singing along to the radio. He can hear Lee and Mary chatting in the office as he pads down the hallway, avoids the cat who is conked out under the radiator, wondering if it’s going to be who he thinks it is. He opens the door, smiles.

“Hi Dad,” Will says. He and Lyra are holding hands, both of them looking a little hungover and tired, but both wearing identical grins. Lyra is wearing the old red corduroy jacket John had given Elaine twenty-five years ago in Verona - Elaine had passed it on to Will when he’d gone to university. John can’t help but smile at the sight. Will looks happier than John has seen him in years; something inside him eases just a little.

“Hello,” he says, then slightly pointed, “Hello, Lyra. It’s lovely to see you again.”

Lyra’s grin just widens, absolutely unrepentant. “Hi, Dr Parry.”

“You know you can just call me by my first name,” John says, stepping aside to let them in. “You’re just in time for food.”

“Told you so,” Will says to Lyra as they take off their shoes. “Everyone has got very predictable in your absence.”

“Boring,” Lyra says, but her eyes are all crinkled up around the corners and John doesn’t miss the way she looks at Will, like he’s her north star, a compass guiding her to safe shores. He tucks his smile away, ushers them through into the kitchen, Mary and Lee spilling out of the office with laughter and greetings. He’s always held onto the belief that tough times come to an end – looking around at his family, he knows that finally it’s come true.

**Author's Note:**

> The jacket is a thing that is dear to me and shows up in the first work in this series. Anyway! There might be a tiny couple of oneshots later but for all intents and purposes this series is done :D please feel free to come and scream at me on Tumblr: @if-fortunate.


End file.
